Horror Game Analysis

I'm a horror game academic and a general video game scholar! (she / they) I write passionately about any kind of video game I play when I have the energy I swear

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After a bit of time with Pathologic 3, after everyone else has already finished it, what can I say about the game's manipulation of temporality? Quite a bit already, actually...

Pathologic 3: Early Thoughts

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In which I examine Bloodborne's early game as having a push-and-pull between luxuriating in ruin, and delighting in violence.

Bloodborne: Early Thoughts

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The February Gap

This is probably the longest I have ever gone without seriously sitting down to play a video game. It’s not like I don’t have a lot to play. The release of Pathologic 3 should have seized me, for one – but despite my wishes to play on stream, my internet has been, shall we say, less than cooperative, cutting out at inopportune times, refusing to work with my streaming computer, and various other…

The February Gap

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Oblivion Isn’t Meant to be Replayed

I’ve been replaying Oblivion Remastered, an updated version of a game that I replayed over and over again when I was about ten years old. I’ve written a bit about this game before, espoused how important it is to me. To an older me, Oblivion is an expression of freedom in video game form in terms of space. You can go anywhere at any time. Decide you’ve had enough of your current quest? The game…

Oblivion Isn’t Meant to be Replayed

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THE YEAR OF PLAYING RPGS

I’ve opened this year with three different roleplaying games on the go. And so far, what I’m seeing is that one of the three roleplaying games is dated in a much, much more severe way than I was prepared for.That game, is, of course, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Softworks 2006), which was remastered just last year. A fresh coat of paint is actually revealing, rather than concealing.…

THE YEAR OF PLAYING RPGS

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YOU SHOULD PLAY: METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER

If you’ve followed my work, you’ll know I’m not really a fan of shooters anymore. I used to be! I used to be all over third-person shooters like the Uncharted series, developed by Naughty Dog. While first-person shooters (often U.S. military focused) never quite appealed to me in the same way as the Uncharted series, which were character-driven games that focused on the stories of interesting…

YOU SHOULD PLAY: METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER

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2026 Roadmap

Hello everyone, and welcome to 2026! Already, a lot of horrible things have happened in the news. This is an era of international destabilization, of an unashamed, naked-faced return to political spheres of influence dictated by might. And yet, in the face of this, we should be looking to one another, and supporting one another, in the face of tyranny and the abuse of power. Human beings are…

2026 Roadmap

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #1

I’m pretty prone to foaming at the mouth about special or interesting video games. If you’ve read from the start, and made it this far through this end-of-year series, you might have recognized that. This last game on the list is, without a doubt, the best game I played this year. I only played through it once. I haven’t gone back to it to 100% complete it. Normally I do that for games I find…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #1

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #2

This year I continued to play aggressively long games, which is, of course, my own fault. It means I get to play less of other video games, though, which in some cases is a problem, because my library of games is also aggressively long. It is a dangerous concoction – but in the case of the following game, I think there was something to be said for enjoying it to the fullest, while also now…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #2

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #3

This game just keeps seeping back into my brain. I really can’t help it. Can you blame me? 3) FEAR & HUNGER | Miro Haverinen 2018“There is beauty in this darkness that can be harnessed and used to usher something new.” Yeah, let’s do this song and dance again, shall we? Fear & Hunger 2: Termina was my favourite game last year, a game of such unparalleled cruelty and murderousness that I could…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #3

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #4

I have a variety of complicated feelings about this game. I think it will warrant more time and more reflection before I can pen anything more coherent than what follows. But it is a game worthy of analysis, worthy of study, and worthy of your time, nonetheless. 4) SILENT HILL F | NeoBard Studios 2025“Whatever you choose, you will definitely regret it.” Since we’ve been talking about games that…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #4

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #5

Legacy is an important thing, particularly in the age of nostalgia that we live in. It is important to consider that for every instance of a successful resurrection, there are five failed investments in old IP that sink beneath the waves, to only be muttered about by people on the internet with too much time on their hands. And so, lo and behold: 5) VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE: BLOODLINES 2 | The…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #5

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #6

6) METAL GEAR SOLID | Konami 1998“You can’t save memories, even on that system of yours. Memories are fragile things.” When I last played Metal Gear Solid, I don’t think I took it in as much as I should have. It was a few years ago now – perhaps during the COVID years, when I tried to pick it up. To be quite honest, I can’t even remember if I finished that playthrough. I must have, I suppose,…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #6

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2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #7

7) MASS EFFECT 3| BioWare 2012“Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer.” Mass Effect 3 is, quite frequently, extremely frustrating. It is a game that completes a trilogy of fabulously disjointed games. In the first Mass Effect, you command a team of experts to pull off a mission that no-one believes in. Defeat a rogue agent,…

2025 End of Year Reflection: Game #7

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2025 End of Year Reflection

I think I’ve said something to this effect before, but this year did not go as planned. Ha, looking back, I wrote exactly that last year: “So this year has not exactly gone according to plan”. If only she knew about 2025, I think to myself. I hope I don’t have to write the same sentence this time next year. As I get older, I think that’s what I can come to expect from life – that plans will get…

2025 End of Year Reflection

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THINKING ABOUT STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC II: THE SITH LORDS | PART THREE: WHAT IS STAR WARS?

At the beginning of my last post, I asked the big, thorny question – what makes a good RPG? Now, I ask what I think is an equally thorny question – what is Star Wars? As with the RPG question, many great minds have laboured over the answer to this question. It all started, of course, with the 1977 film directed by George Lucas, a space-fantasy adventure that hearkened after the sci-fi serials…

THINKING ABOUT STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC II: THE SITH LORDS | PART THREE: WHAT IS STAR WARS?

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THINKING ABOUT STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC II: THE SITH LORDS | PART TWO: GAME SYSTEMS

What makes a good roleplaying game? In fact, let’s go one step further – what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game? This is a question many great minds have struggled in vain for years to answer. Is it number-crunching mechanics? Games where your stat and trait choices actually matter? Or maybe the true importance of a roleplaying game lies in the narrative side of things. Do we have to be…

THINKING ABOUT STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC II: THE SITH LORDS | PART TWO: GAME SYSTEMS